Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a server system, and more particularly, to a BMC having a hard disk (HD) drive monitoring function in a server system.
Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a conventional server system. Referring to FIG. 1, the server system 100 includes a host system 11, a host bus adapter (HBA) 12, a hard disk drive 14, a storage enclosure processor (SEP) 15, a plurality of sensors 151, a plurality of indicators 152 and a baseboard management controller (BMC) 18. The HBA 12 is connected to the host system 11 while the HD drive 14 and the SEP 15 is connected to the HBA 12. The SEP 15 interfaces with various sensors 151 and indicators 152 (e.g. LEDs, LCDs, audible alarms, etc.).
Once the HD drive 14 fails, the SEP 15 is informed by the HBA 12 and then drives the indicators 152 to indicate the drive failure event. A system administrator of a corporate network may be present at one location while the servers may be spread around the buildings or even anywhere of the internet. It is very difficult and costly for the system administrator to be physically present at each server side and check each drive state.
Under this circumstance, a remote management function supported by a BMC may help the system administrator to be able to get each drive state for each server system through the network, just like the system administrator physically present at each server side. Conventionally, there are three ways for the BMC 18 to get each drive state. (1) Install self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology (S.M.A.R.T.) software on the host system 11. The BMC 18 can get the state of the HD drive 14 from the S.M.A.R.T. software. However, the customer that owns the server system 100 generally does not agree because installing the S.M.A.R.T. software may incur a data leakage risk. (2) Create a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) bus between the HBA 12 and the BMC 18. The BMC 18 can get each drive state via management component transport protocol (MCTP) over PCIe bus. However, the HBA 12 having PCIe bus and supporting MCTP needs to be customized, which is not cost efficient. (3) Create an I2C bus between the HBA 12 and the BMC 18. The BMC 18 can get each drive state via the I2C bus. Likewise, the HBA 12 having I2C bus interfacing with the BMC 18 needs to be customized, which is not cost efficient.
Accordingly, what is needed is a server system to address the above-identified problems. The invention addresses such a need.